The On30" News
Edited by and Courtesy of Jeff Saxton

Back in the early 1980's Jeff edited a newsletter for the then almost unheard of scale/gauge of On30. Through Jeff's generosity I am very proud to present the back issues of the On30" News.

I've scanned the original pages and put them into .pdf files for each issue. There are a total of sixteen issues. To download the issue you want just click on its' cover. I've also indicated the approximate size of each file. Remember, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view these files.

On30" News: A brief history
by Jeff Saxton

'The On30" News' was begun late one night in June of 1982. I was working third shift on the weekends in a QA/Chem lab, and while I had to physically be at work, there was only about two hour's worth of actual work to be done each night. I even built some models there, namely, my old #9 Whitcomb switcher.

I had been sending snail mail letters around to various new-found friends in the On30" world, namely Tom Houle, the late Dick Andrews, Gordon North, and Paul Stapleton (in the UK). I had noted privately that many of my letters to each person were amalgams of what everyone else was saying, with me as the clearinghouse -- and many contained much the same info ... so why not write it as a newsletter, and see if we could expand our reach. Then and there, 'The On30" News' was born, even the now seemingly tacky title!

There was an office typewriter just sitting there begging to be used, so the first issue fell out of the machine that weekend -- I even did that first Porter 2-8-0 plan at work. The office copier provided the initial 30 issues, about seven of which were mailed out on the following Monday. I also mailed the Gazette and RMC asking them to put a blurb in their columns advising them of the new venture. The Gazette ran the notice in the Nov/Dec 1982 issue.

My local buddy Mike Perkins and I attended the Narrow Gauge Convention in Denver that Fall, and there we promoted the News heavily with taped-up notices about an On30" meeting to be held in our hotel room late on Friday night. As I recall, about 12 to 15 people attended, there was beer, and the guy across the hall (the late Mike Pearsall) called the hotel staff to shut us down around 1:30 in the morning! I remember Gordon North was there, and Moe Mechling, and four English friends ... but other than those six (and Mike and I), I can't remember who else was present. At the convention proper, we handed out about 130 issues of the News to interested attendees -- and from there we grew.

When I moved to the San Diego area in the late Fall of 1982, the Newsletter followed, and I bought a cheap electric typewriter to produce it, using a local copy shop for the actual printing. We really grew then, and when I moved back to St. Louis to work at Railcraft, we were at about 90 to 100 members.

Over the next 18 months I kept it up, but the increasing demands on my time meant the News suffered, and by the Winter of 1984/85 is was nearly defunct. There was a brief resurgence in 1985 when I met the Manchester Mini-Bunch (Steve Fisher, Gary Cerrone, Jim Barcus, et al.); but by then I was engaged .. and well, you know how that goes.

When the News ended, we were at roughly 175 members, but of those 175, I could only readily identify about 30 folks actually modeling in On30". Now of course, any similar newsletter would likely be mailed to a thousand or more folks!

Several interesting trivia bits for those who care:

I only called the scale and gauge On30", instead of the more correct "Oh and two and a half" because that typewriter I used had no ½ key ... and back then, the articles in the press had all used the term On30" ... the same as they did for HOn30". For want of a "½" key, the die was set ...

The Masthead artwork in the first issue was simply a place-keeper. Mike Perkins drew the one in the second issue based on his scratchbuilt 2-8-2 seen in profile ... he drew the one in the third and all subsequent issues based on the artwork we saw for a local eatery named "The Grove", but with a train in it, not food. Again, it's Mike's engine seen.

Tom Gent, who started providing the screened prints of our photos, worked for a local department store chain (The May Company) in their advertising department. One day I tried to phone Tom and his wife said he had had some sort of brain hemorrhage, and that's the last thing I could ever find out about him or his condition.

At the 1995 Narrow Gauge Convention, bookseller Gary Altschuler had a "complete, original" set of the News for $50. For a lark, I looked through them, and he proceeded to tell me they were very rare, as the guy had died. I told him it was all later copies of the News, with few "originals", it was missing the final two issues, and the original subscriber had joined in November of 1983 -- and furthermore, I most certainly wasn't dead, and I even still sold "complete, original" back issues for $10 a set. Another fellow overheard me and asked if he could buy a set from me ... and we walked away ...

Looking back 24 years, the News seems somewhat tacky to me, but then, I wasn't even 21 yet when I started doing it. Actually, I'm surprised I had the balls to do it at all, seeing how shy I was as a kid!

If anyone has any further questions, feel free to write ...
Jeff Saxton

The On30" News Archive

Volume 1 Number 12MB

Volume 1 Number 22.5 MB

Volume 1 Number 32.8 MB

Volume 1 Number 43.3 MB

Volume 1 Number 52.6 MB

Volume 1 Number 62.6 MB

Volume 1 Number 75.2 MB

Volume 1 Number 86.6 MB

Volume 1 Number 95.2 MB

Volume 2 Number 15.8 MB

Volume 2 Number 1 Page 6465 KB

Volume 2 Number 26.8 MB

Volume 2 Number 36 MB

Volume 2 Number 46.5 MB

Volume 2 Number 56.2 MB

Volume 2 Number 66.5 MB

Volume 3 Number 1 Part 14.6 MB

Volume 3 Number 1 Part 25.3 MB

Note 1: Volume 2, Number 1 was missing page 6. Page six is now downloadable as a seperate page. Its' link is right next to the link for Volume 2, Number 1.

Note 2: The Volume 3, Number 1 issue is in two parts due to the size of the file.